The Aderyn Account: Stranger in a Strange Land
by craftykitty
Summary: I claim no ownership of anything that is not my own. The Lord of the Rings and concepts in this story are Tolkien's. -A young woman with an extraordinary secret has fallen into the midst of a war between good and evil.- Mainly book-verse and general Tolkien-lore.
1. The Incident

Chapter One – The Incident

I awoke to a horrible cramping sensation in my neck and lower back. I gingerly lifted my head from my laptop keyboard. I had to stop this. "Forever the hard worker", I muttered to myself. I looked around. The library was dark. Crap... I had been left alone in here. My boss (who was a total jerk of a woman with most students), knowing that I was, for the time being, entirely devoted to perfecting my thesis, gave me a little time off each evening from working in the library so that I may attend to my precious thesis. Being an Oxford English major sucked drastically at times, but having a job at the massive school library had its perks. Maybe my boss had thought that I'd gone back to the dorm already and had closed up shop for the night.

Realizing that I was about to doze off once more, I decided that it might be a good idea to check the time. My poor laptop's battery had died hours ago, as had my cell phone's. Like a fool, I wore no watch. The only things that decorated my wrists were my many bangles, braided bracelets, and the ink of one of my many tattoos. I've always been what you could call different. I have about a dozen ear piercings. My hair happens to be several shades of deep brown and blonde, laced with two small braids and some hair charms. I have a nose ring. Many tattoos adorn my body, my favorites being a great oak tree that stretches across my back; a sleeve that stretches from my shoulder to my wrist and is made up of an array of different animals, plants, and symbols; my mother's initials on my wrist underneath a small, black, anchor; and a Tolkien quote: "A single dream is worth more than a thousand realities.", accompanied by a second: "You can only come to the morning through the shadows." He was my mother's favorite author. She read me snippets of his books before bed each night. Not the scary parts; only the details about elves and dwarves and happy little hobbit holes.

Most people are intimidated by the tattoos, but hey. I'm me, and I wouldn't have me any other way.

I slapped myself awake as I stood from my creaky, wooden chair. It protested raucously. The noises echoed throughout the room, once more making me aware of how alone I was. I closed my laptop and zipped it into my worn, leather messenger bag. Crap. I still needed to check the time, and if necessary, call my roommate to let her know where I was. Beth tended to get worried easily. She knew I wasn't the type to stay out partying like most college kids. I was a _study_ freak. I stayed inside, glued to books and research papers. I just hoped to God that she hadn't done something rash, like call the campus cops to come find me. That chick always tried to mother me, and normally, I appreciated it. She was a sensible friend to have.

I shuffled down the empty aisles of bookcases, almost knocking over a small display in my groggy state. What a pain in the butt that I worked where I did. When I was working on homework or studying, I had a tendency to conceal myself in a small room in the back. It was mainly full of a bunch of old files containing information about the school. Not many people went back there, and if they were, they were usually very stuffy, boring, history majors. It was always so blissfully _quiet_. Despite it being the perfect hiding place, it always ensured me a lengthy and winding walk back to the front desk.

I bumped my shins on each furnishing that I passed. Miraculously, I reached the front desk. It took a moment for my sleep-starved brain to process the numbers on the bright, LED clock mounted on the wall behind the desk. Great... 1:40 a.m. I reaaaallllllyyyy needed to call Bethany and let her know that I was actually alive. But, of course, my phone was dead, and I had no way to retrieve her cell phone number until it was charged. She would have to wait until I got back to the dorm. Which I would do, eventually.

A loud thud echoed throughout the library. Perhaps a book had fallen from a table or shelf? Then again, it had sounded too loud to be a mere book… 'Heck, it couldn't have been anything else', I thought. Maybe my boss was still there? Or night custodians. Yeah, that. Whatever it was, it was my duty to make sure that nobody but myself and faculty remained after close…

I swallowed my unease and decided on investigating the sound further. Crap… My poor, dead cell phone... If something was awry, I would have to run like a champ to get to a phone… Or out of the building… Ugh. I was freaking the out. I muttered to myself to calm down. It was probably nothing. Just a book. Or maybe we had mice! It was one of the oldest libraries in Europe, after all. There's bound to be mice once in awhile… 'Or a freakin' serial murderer. And if so, I'm gunna die', I thought to myself. My slight southern drawl holds true, even in my thoughts. It's died down a bit since I moved to England, but I'm still an American girl from the South. I'm one-half Cherokee Indian, which is even more odd to see at Oxford, but hey, I made it here due to my moderately high IQ and record-breaking test scores and GPA, all of which I'm quite proud of. To heck with those stereotypes about southern Americans being stupid.

Again. Crap. Crap. Crap, Jesus H. Christ in a chicken basket. I heard it again. I heard the noise again. Ehhh, something was definitely in the library with me. Whyyyyy did this have to happen to meeee? 'Because you're a sleep-deprived English major who has to not only pass, but exceed on her finals, idiot', I muttered in my head. I mentally slapped myself for not studying in my room tonight. Okay. Breathe. Breathe. I was nearing the source of the noise. I was sweating profusely and shaking like a leaf. The noise again. More sweating and shaking as I neared the back of the library. Finally, I arrived where I had been typing away on my laptop earlier that night. Nobody was there. Nothing moved but my own quivering, panting, sweaty form. I turned toward the door, sighing a sigh of relief. A bright light filled my vision from the doorway and a searing pain filled my body. I promptly collapsed on the floor. My vision slowly began to fade to black as I fought to keep my eyes open. Through my half-closed eyes, I could make out a dark figure standing over me. Pain engulfed my mind and everything went black.


	2. Arrival

**Disclaimer: I claim NO ownership of The Lord of the Rings Franchise, nor do I claim ownership of Tolkien's work. Credit and ownership belongs to its rightful owners, NOT me. The only things I own and wish to receive credit for are my own original characters and plots. Kudos to Tolkien for creating The Lord of the Rings, Middle Earth, and everything else that he did :).**

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**The first chapters of this story, including this one, have gone through some MAJOR changes! No worries, no worries, it's all for the best!**

**-craftykitty**

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Chapter Two – Arrival

The first things that I became aware of were an awful, bodily ache and the fact that I was laying on the ground. Everything ached. I cracked an eyelid. I was outside and it was nighttime. I gasped and sat up, my back achily protesting that action. Oh, dear God. Ohhh, Christ. What the hell happened back there? I took a moment to process my surroundings. I made a mental list of my location:

I'm on the ground.

I'm underneath an oak tree.

My back feels like someone took a sledgehammer to it.

Something smells extremely dead.

I think I might be on a cloud…

I soon realized that it wasn't entirely a cloud, but fog. As I started to pick myself up off the ground, a burning pain knocked the breath out of me. I looked down at my torso. Horror grabbed me by the throat as I realized that part of my shirt looked like it had been burned away. The charred fabric opened to reveal a deep, blackened burn in the center of my chest. I slowly sat back down and examined the wound. It appeared to be no deeper than my skin. There was no blood; the burn appeared to be cauterized, but charred. What scared me the most was the shape of it. It looked like a brand.

I gripped the old oak beside me and struggled to stand. An expanse of dead grass and mud spread out before me. The bones of the earth stuck out of small hills in jagged, toothy formations. Directly to my right, a larger, unnatural-looking hill rose from the earth. Great pillars hewn from a dark-grey stone seemed to grow right from the hilltop in a circle. A stone archway grew out of one of the hillsides. Half-worn letters were ornately carved into the pillars forming the bases of the archway and great, stone door lay at the center. The lettering looked like runes from an age long past. Everything around me made me think of a great, big Stonehenge. I was standing in the middle of a huge, old relic.

My wound blatantly made itself known to me once more. Clutching my side, I gasped and stumbled forward, falling into the mud at my feet. I brought my hand away to see blood. I needed help. Someone, a hospital. _Anyone!_

A grinding sound resonating from the large hill caught my attention, followed by a long, slow _hisssssssssssssssssssss. _I snapped my eyes to the door. It was… _opening_. Like the not-so-brave little wuss that I am, I scuttled backwards through the mud, seeking the shelter of the oak tree. I hoped to God that the shadow and fog would hide me. Whatever was happening, it didn't feel _right._

_Crunch. Crunch._ I squeezed my eyes shut and crouched lower into the shadows when I realized that I heard footsteps. I couldn't keep myself from shaking like a leaf when I heard ragged breaths being drawn a mere 10 feet away from my hiding place. I shook even harder when I heard a slimy, guttural voice.

_"Goooootttthhhh… Gooothhhh… Goth!"_

Goth? Gote? Whatever that word meant, I had no idea. I just knew I could potentially be killed out here. I then heard a second voice. This one chilled me to the bone.

_"Hoshaaaaatttttt Snaaaagaaaa. Thrak parpara shatraug-gijak. Buuuurzuuuuuuum."_

I cowered in fear and pain as I heard heavy footfalls moving my way. I snapped my eyes open in time to see a sight so horrible that it belonged only in my darkest nightmares. A tall, awful creature, about seven feet in height, shuffled my way. Dirty, sallow skin was stretched over its bony frame. Muscles bulged underneath the skin in all of the wrong places for something that looked so malnourished. Filthy, shredded pieces of cloth and metal covered the top halves of its legs and parts of its torso. Its long, twisted legs ended in large feet shod in what looked like the stretched-out flesh of long-dead animals. Its face was purely repulsive to look at. The skin was wrinkled and slimy, stretching out over its high cheekbones and framing its too-wide eyes with a mushy-looking mess of pasty flesh. Its gaping, lipless mouth revealed a row of yellowed, razor-sharp teeth. I was too damn frozen in fear to run, even though my brain screamed how stupid I was for not doing so.

The creature stretched out its claw-like hands and caught my arm in a hard grip, dragging me out of the shadows. I couldn't do anything but kick at it and scream profanities.

_"Undur kurv!" _it shrieked. The back of its slimy hand made contact with the side of my face. That only made me scream louder.

It- I'm going to call it the Thing- lifted me from the ground and threw me to the feet of the owner of the second voice. I looked up. I expected to see a face, but I saw nothing beneath the black hood that covered its head. Its entire body was draped in a black cloak and its hands were covered in gleaming, metal gauntlets. It didn't move. I don't even think it breathed. What it _did_ do was smell like death and scare the living hell out of me.

_"Dûshatar lûb, shatraug gijak. Broshn gazghash, ssssnaaaaagaaa krimp."_ Its voice was like sand leaking through a siv. At its words, the Thing cackled maniacally. I couldn't understand a word that it said, but I gathered that it was quite bad.

"What the _hell_ is even going on?!" I shrieked. The Thing snatched me up off of the ground. "Get _OFF _me! Let _GO!_ _NOW!"_ I felt the charred skin on my chest tear. I shrieked and felt a wave of nausea wash over me. My head felt lighter than air and I struggled to keep down the vomit. The figure in front of me produced from his cloak a short, pointed blade that reminded me very much of an oversized needle. I wanted to shut my eyes but I couldn't.

_"Morguuuuul-thaaaaaaaaaauuuuuk, snaaaaaaaaaagaaa rad."_

I prepared myself for the pain of the blade entering my body, but it didn't come. Everything was frozen. A sudden blinding flash of light seared my vision and clouded my head. What felt like a mild shockwave knocked me out of the Thing's grasp. The last thing I remember is slipping into the mud and my vision slowly fading to black…

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**Hello, dear readers! Constructive criticism and reviews are very much appreciated. Criticism is a necessary element of successful writing. Thank you for reading, and check back often for more chapters :)! We're just getting started. I intend to make this story lengthy.**

**-craftykitty**

**P.S. The strange words that you see in this chapter are spoken in the Black Speech, the language of Mordor. Tolkien was quite vague when creating this language. I used various online English-to-Black Speech dictionaries, most of which were created via speculation based on the information given in Tolkien's writings. The meanings of some of the key words in this chapter's dialogue will be given to you in chapters to come :)! **


	3. If

**Disclaimer: I claim NO ownership of The Lord of the Rings Franchise, nor do I claim ownership of Tolkien's work. Credit and ownership belongs to its rightful owners, NOT me. The only things I own and wish to receive credit for are my own original characters and plots. Kudos to Tolkien for creating The Lord of the Rings, Middle Earth, and everything else that he did :).**

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**Hello, dear readers! Like someone said, mystery is a good way to start this. Mystery creates some suspense. Not everything is what it seems. I enjoy a bit of mystery. It does create some suspense at times. In fact, I can't think of a more mysterious character than Tolkien's Tom Bombadil. If you do not know him or his wife, Goldberry, you might not understand much of what is to come.**

**Tom Bombadil is one of the greatest enigmas in Tolkien-lore, and because of that, he is one of my favorite characters. Because he and Goldberry are such enigmas, it is difficult to write about them. I found the dialogue to be a bit difficult. Because not much is known about them, it's hard to get a feel for their mannerisms and personalities. If you don't know Tom or Goldberry, I highly recommend that you look them up. **

**Enough of my mindless chatter, on with the chapter :D!**

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Chapter Three – _If_

A deep, woody scent entered my nostrils. I inhaled. I reached up to rub my eyes, finding them swollen and sore. A deep ache that seemed to go down under my flesh and resonate in my bones engulfed my body. All of my muscles were _seriously_ sore.

"Oh mercy-me, the young lady has come to!"

I nearly jumped out of my skin and the clear, warm voice that rang in my ears.

"Not to worry, not to fear! No untame things dare venture beneath this roof. The night has long passed and the day shines bright!" It was a woman's voice. It sounded like sunshine compared to what I'd gone through… Hell! I was alive! What the heck happened to me? Where _was _I? I rubbed my eyes again and sat up. My back protested angrily. God, I hurt.

Looking around, I saw that I was in a bed. And a bed_room_. The sheets were crisp and white. The walls and floors were made of a smooth, glowing wood. A broad window let in a beam of blinding sunshine that felt amazing on my skin.

"It is a dear pleasure to see that our guest is in good health."

The owner of the voice sat to my left. She was breathtaking. She looked like the incarnation of a woodland itself. She wore a long dress of bright green streaked with silver, and a golden belt shaped like a chain of lilies. Her skin was so fair that it seemed to glow. Her golden hair rippled down her back and framed her face like a wreath of fresh wheat. Kind eyes burned into mine. Whoever she was, simply being in her presence lightened my mood a bit.

"I am Goldberry, daughter of the River," she said with a smile. "You are in the house of Tom Bombadil, and a very welcome guest you are! Fear not; the darkness you faced before dares not enter here. Be merry! I have tended your wounds and now find you to be in good health. Worry not, though the wound may fester, it will heal within the weeks to come."

"H-how did I get here…? I don't remember what happened…" What. The. Heck. Where was I? Tom _Bombadil_? I needed to get back home. I needed to call someone. Anyone. Beth? I needed Beth. Anyone. Somewhere. Not here. And Goldberry? What kind of a name was _that?_ Whose daughter?This woman seemed far too happy to be a normal member of the human race.

"Why, none other than Tom Bombadil himself found you near-death at the edge of the Barrow Downs! Quite a dark place for a lady to wander, and not one to face alone."

"B-Barrow Downs...? Please, I need to use you phone! I was attacked; I need to tell someone… I need to call the _police!_" I was nearly in hysterics by then. I didn't know what could have happened… Where the _heck_ were the Barrow Downs?! I didn't _know _of any Barrow Downs… What happened to Oxford?

"I know not this "phone" that you speak of. We are quite safe here. The Master of the house shall return quite soon. He shall tend to your every need. Tom Bombadil takes kindly to those in need." She gave me another warm smile. I felt a little more at peace. The hysterics were gone. I would be okay. I would be okay. I would get home.

"There now, be merry and rest easy! I must tend to your wounds once more. Soon we shall dine!"

I would be okay. Whenever this Tom Bomderdill, or whatever his name was, got back, I would get help. My wound didn't hurt nearly as bad and this mystery Goldberry lady was taking care of the worst of it. I would call the police and call Beth, then I would be fine. Food would be absolutely fantastic…

Goldberry started unwrapping the bandages tied around my torso. I realized that I wasn't wearing anything but bandages. I glanced around and saw my mangled sweater strewn across a chair, along with my bra… great. Oh well; we were both women. It wasn't like I was particularly gifted in the chest area or anything. I watched as she laid the soiled bandages at the foot of the bed. The mark on my chest was repulsive. The burn was in the shape of a circle. The skin was dark and charred in the center. Bright pink flesh bloomed in ridges around the edges. Dried blood dotted the entire thing. I gagged.

"Such a mark upon a person is an uncommon sight. Not since days long past have I seen such a mark." Goldberry still emanated the same, happy aura as before, but her eyes revealed that she was thinking of something darker. She gently blotted at the burn with a damp cloth that smelled like herbs, cleaning it of any germs or blood that remained. Whatever was on the cloth made my skin tingle. She dipped it into an earthenware bowl full of what looked like mashed-up plants and dotted the mixture onto my chest. A little more of the pain died down. As she was wrapping a clean strip of cloth around my torso, a cheerful man's voice floated in through the open window and filled my ears:

"Hey dol! Merry dol! Sunshine on the heather!

Starlings sing and crickets ring, quite the cheerful weather!

Back from fetching water-lilies, checked up on Old Man Willow.

Tom Bom, jolly Tom, Tom Bombadillo!"

Oh. God. Whoever this man was… I already deemed him mad. So much for the help that Goldberry had promised me. I would be stuck here or I would be forced to find my way back on my own. No telephone? No police? I was screwed.

"Slender like a willow-wand, clearer than the water.

There my lovely lady is, River-woman's daughter!"

I could hear a door open and shut, then the thumping of boots. It seemed that the "Master of the house" had returned. The promise of food lightened my mood a little, but what the heck kind of help was there to be had from a madman? Goldberry smiled and handed me a clean, linen shirt. I nodded to her in thanks and slipped it over my head. It smelled like gardenias. I'd managed to put the shirt on just in time; a moment later, I heard the hollow _thump thump thump _of boots on a wood floor just outside of the bedroom. I held my breath as the door opened.

"And here I find my pretty lady! Ah, the young, fair lady is with us once more! Off under willows was I, and leaping 'cross the briars; fetching fair water-lilies for the fair Daughter of the River. How fare thee today, fair lady? Quite a fine day, how fares your health?"

Tom Bombadil wasn't quite the man I'd expected. He looked like a simple man with a rustic sense of style, but a man who knew some things and was, perhaps, not so simple of a man deep down. He was somewhat short for a fully-grown man, which surprised me a bit. He wore a bright-blue jacket that reached nearly to his knees and was belted at the waist with a broad, brown-leather belt. His thick legs, clothed in brown pants of a rough-looking fabric, ended in large, yellow boots. He had a very long, brown beard and bushy brown hair, and both were shot with silver. His wild hair framed a face that was bright red and creased with laugh-lines. Bright-blue eyes, full of a great energy and knowing, gazed curiously into mine. Even his eyes seemed to be laughing, as if he had some great secret that only he was allowed to know. In his arms were an amount of delicate, white water-lilies. What threw me off a little more was the fact that he had a crown of what looked like autumn leaves perched on top of his head… I hoped and prayed to whatever Gods existed that he could and would help me get, well… help.

"The young lady awoke not too long before your arrival, and I found her to be in quite a lovely shade of health. The marking festers yet, but the remedies do their job well! Soon enough shall the fair guest be free of this malady."

Tom Bombadil then halted his almost-painful merrymaking. (Almost painful for me because of the situation at hand. The hysterics were gone, but more were soon to follow, I was sure.) The look on Tom's face darkened and he narrowed his bright eyes. He spoke again in senseless rhymes: "Time heals all wounds, old become the new; yet remnants of a yesterday are 'neath the morning's dew."

I shook my head at what seemed at the time to be nonsense. The only people I'd heard speak in such a manner were either crazy, or they were aspiring rappers. Or they were on drugs or were drunk. Or they taught English for a living. I thought of one of my eccentric, old professors at Oxford and shook my head again.

I finally had managed to gather enough nerve to ask the man a few questions, most of them regarding my location and getting the police.

"Er… Do you have a _telephone_ that I could use?" I turned to Goldberry. "I mean, I really do appreciate the help, but has anyone called a hospital?! I need to call the police, or the sheriff, _someone! _I don't even know where I am, I j-just need to g-get ba-ack to Ox-x-xford…" And the tears came doooooooowwwwwwn. I couldn't keep myself from freaking out anymore. What was happening? What was wrong with these people?

"I know not a telephone, too far to call the Shiriff; the Shiriff's in the Shire and such quiet folk live in it. Oxford? Been far and wide old Tom has, and not one place I've known is that. Cry not, child, old Tom will tend to your needs. What land be this Oxford in? This Middle Earth I've seen for miles, and not a whisper of this place is heard in the Wilds." He paused. "Another thing, before we sup. How came thee by the song? Not many know the song." The song. I halted entirely at that moment. I stopped breathing, stopped moving. It was as if everything froze. Within that moment, all of my thoughts burst from my head and I suddenly began to understand…

When I was a little girl, I believed in magic. I had hopes and dreams about a magical place, far off in time compared to the here and the now. I dreamed of a fantastical place full of dungeons, battles, and caves glittering with gold; a place of darkness, love, and light; a place full of elves, wizards, and fantastical things that didn't exist in my place and time… but most of all, a place of magic. I dreamed of a place where the impossible was simple improbable, and a place that I hoped to escape to in more than just my wildest dreams. Like many other kids, I had an imagination bigger than the sky. Perhaps it was due to my mother's incessant habit of filling my head with fairy tales and songs of an imaginary land that existed only in the farthest reaches of the imaginary past. I used to believe in magic. That belief died long ago, and all of the hopes that I had in that belief died with my mother. But… what if? What _if?_ After her death, I lost all of my ridiculous, childish dreams. I became an adult. I had to. Then, all of _this_ happened… Blacking out in the library, ending up in a strange place out in the wilderness, and seeing the horrible things that I saw… Monsters. Demons. Things that were not of the world that I called "home". The mark on my chest was extremely surreal on its own. I had already gone through all of the usual reality checks to see if I was dreaming. You know, making sure that I had all of my fingers, making sure that my hair was the same color and length, making sure I had on the same clothes. Pinching myself, hard. The usual. Everything about me remained the same. The only things that had changed were my location, the burn on my body, and a whopping bruise from when I'd tried to pinch myself back into what I thought was reality.

In that frozen moment, it all hit me. HARD. I vaguely remembered a song from my childhood that my mother used to sing. Something about a man whose jacket was blue and his boots were yellow… A song about a very peculiar man. What _if?! _What if, somewhere, somehow, in another time or world or plane of existence, there were others? What if there was other intelligent life out there, life that happened to be a little different than the normal human existence? What _IF? _Another memory of my childhood hit me like a ton of bricks. After my mother would tell me a bedtime story, after she kissed me on the head and tucked me in, she would never fail to whisper in my ear, "It always seems impossible until it is done. Never give up your dreams. They only make you stronger." What if the impossible was simply improbable from the start? Screw all of the things I'd learned in my college courses for just a moment. Screw my agnosticism and my usual lack of belief in things that I couldn't see for myself. Forget all of it for a minute. _What if?_

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**Constructive criticism is much appreciated! If I've made errors, by all means, let me know so that I may correct them. I'm a tired person right now. I don't doubt that there are errors.**

**Thanks for reading :)!**

**-craftykitty**


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